Market for Films Signals Good, Not Great, Year for Sundance

Frank Langella in "Robot & Frank," which earned a distribution deal after its showing at the Sundance Film Festival.Credit
Matt Lloyd

PARK CITY, Utah — “The buzz means nothing,” said Robert Redford as his Sundance Film Festival opened in this luxury ski town last week. “Wait until it’s over, and see what sticks.”

That’s pretty much the case for any film festival, but it is especially true about Sundance, where every movie, aggressively angling for a distribution deal, arrives with a publicist (or five) in tow. Hotly anticipated pictures fall head first into snowdrifts, and obscure ones surprise and become overnight sensations once audiences (and critics) are let into the theaters.

Still, the disconnect this year between expectations going into Sundance and the results coming out has been particularly pronounced.

Meanwhile, a movie that caused several buyers to roll their eyes before the festival began — “Beasts of the Southern Wild,” a drama tinged with magical realism, about a 6-year-old named Hushpuppy in bayou country — became an instant must-see after an early audience gave it a standing ovation, and critics drooled.

Other movies that entered with little heat (“Robot and Frank,” with Frank Langella, about a retired jewel thief and his mechanized caretaker) or arrived with negative buzz (“The Surrogate,” with a very naked Helen Hunt as a sex worker), emerged with rosy futures, or at least distribution deals.

Sundance 2012, which culminates on Saturday with its awards presentation, has also sharply defied predictions on the business side, the marketplace where indie distributors like the Weinstein Company shop for films as if they were browsing a cinematic Walmart.

Ahead of the festival, sales agents predicted a flurry of big-money purchases by distributors. That strutting was not just hype: More than 40 movies sold last year, one of the biggest buying binges in Sundance history, and the health of the indie marketplace has since improved, partly because of newly robust video-on-demand revenue. For instance, “Margin Call,” starring Kevin Spacey, generated about $4 million from on-demand services in 2011, close to its entire North American box office total.

But it quickly became clear that the mood of buyers was not in alignment with that of sellers. “There were a lot of good films, but not a lot of great ones,” said Michael Barker, co-president of Sony Pictures Classics.

The pace of acquisitions was steady if not exactly brisk. Magnolia Pictures paid an undisclosed price for the North American theatrical rights to “The Queen of Versailles” less than 24 hours after its premiere. But more typical was “Lay the Favorite,” about a stripper turned sports bettor that stars Rebecca Hall, Bruce Willis and Catherine Zeta-Jones. Made at a cost of about $15 million, this comedic drama has yet to land in a shopping cart; its best hope now may be a bidder willing to spend a couple of million dollars, banking on strong on-demand revenue.

In what appears to be the biggest deal of this year’s festival, Fox Searchlight paid an estimated $6 million for “The Surrogate,” starring Ms. Hunt as a woman who helps a poet with an iron lung (John Hawkes) lose his virginity. More often, filmmakers made do with $2 million to $2.5 million, the estimated prices paid for films like “Robot and Frank”; “For a Good Time, Call...,” a female-driven comedy about phone sex; “The Words,” a thriller starring Bradley Cooper; and “Arbitrage,” a financial thriller starring Richard Gere.

Last year, by the time the festival closed, the Weinstein Company had paid about $7.5 million (and an additional $10 million advertising guarantee) for “The Details,” a dark comedy starring Tobey Maguire, and about $7 million (and a $15 million advertising guarantee) for “My Idiot Brother,” a comedy starring Paul Rudd. Sundance’s sales record was set in 2006, when Fox Searchlight paid $10.5 million for “Little Miss Sunshine,” which took in over $100 million at the global box office.

What happened? Despite the hoopla surrounding Sundance — publicists sent this reporter 419 unsolicited pitches for articles tied to the festival — seasoned buyers practiced what Mr. Redford preached and were cautious about overbidding.

Part of the restraint came from a recognition that last year’s shopping spree did not deliver results. “Margin Call” was an exception, but almost every other movie from the festival fizzled, including “Martha Marcy May Marlene,” “Another Earth” and “The Art of Getting By,” all purchased last year by Fox Searchlight. “Like Crazy” bombed at the box office for Paramount; “My Idiot Brother” (whose title was changed to “Our Idiot Brother” for its release) failed to meet expectations. “The Details” hasn’t been released yet, although Weinstein is looking at an early summer or midfall date.

And not a single Sundance movie from last year has been a major awards contender.

There is a silver lining here: A slow, low-priced festival may be a good thing for independent film. One reason that the art house sector has gone through such a difficult retrenchment in recent years involves ever-escalating prices; as buyers started to spend more for quirky pictures, they also had to spend more on marketing to assure a bigger audience, and the economics of the business started to implode. It led to the shuttering or downsizing of several distributors.

So the indie crowd may be returning to New York and Los Angeles with a bit of the blues, but it doesn’t mean the specialty film market isn’t healthy. It could mean just the opposite. As David Glasser, Weinstein’s chief operating officer, told Deadline.com going into the festival, “We’ll bid numbers that will allow us to be here five years from now.”

Correction: January 27, 2012

An earlier version of this article misstated the number of films from last year’s Sundance Film Festival that were nominated for an Academy Award this year. Three films, including two documentary features, received Oscar nominations.

A version of this article appears in print on January 28, 2012, on Page C1 of the New York edition with the headline: At a Subtler Sundance, One Film Sparkles: A Sales Race for Tortoises, Not Hares. Order Reprints|Today's Paper|Subscribe